A Redwood City family found a three-bedroom house on Craigslist for $2,500 a month. They sent an application and pay stubs, toured the home in person, signed a lease, and paid $4,500. None of it was real. According to ABC7’s 7 On Your Side report from October 21, 2026, the “landlord,” who called himself Kenneth, did not own the house and did not work for the company that managed it. He got the family inside by sending them a link to the property’s legitimate self-tour listing. The keypad opened, the tour went fine, and the family walked out believing they had a new home.
Most coverage focuses on the renter. The owner’s side gets less attention. Kenneth didn’t need to own anything. He needed a vacant unit, the real listing photos, and a self-tour system that would open the door for anyone who passed its checks. The renters lost the money. The owner’s vacancy, the owner’s brand, and the owner’s front door were the bait.
If you own rentals in Oakland, San Leandro, or anywhere in the East Bay, your vacancy is the inventory scammers want. Listing hijacking is an operating risk you manage, not a renter problem you read about.
How the Redwood City Scam Actually Worked
Each step in the ABC7 report is one an owner can interrupt.
- The ad was copied, not invented. The real management company, RentWise, told ABC7 that scammers copied its listings onto multiple sites “at prices well below market” and set up an account on a third-party listing platform using its name.
- The price was the hook. $2,500 for a three-bedroom house on the Peninsula is the kind of number that makes a renter stop asking questions.
- Payment went through channels that can’t be traced back. The family paid in a series of transfers across different platforms, including repeated Zelle payments. At one point the scammer sent them to a specific ATM for cash.
- The self-tour sealed it. Rently told ABC7 that the scammer appeared to have shared a link to the property’s legitimate Rently listing, which may have made the offer seem more credible. Rently said renters must pass identity verification and other checks before getting access.
- The fraud surfaced weeks later. The family only realized it when they saw the same house listed on other sites at different prices.
The family got $3,800 back from their bank, but only after ABC7 got involved. RentWise said it had the fake account and ads taken down and has since hired a third-party service that watches for duplicate listings around the clock. That second step is the lesson for owners.
This Isn’t a One-Off. The Federal Numbers Are Large.
The Federal Trade Commission published a Consumer Protection Data Spotlight on rental scams in December 2025. Since 2020, people have reported nearly 65,000 rental scams to the FTC, with about $65 million in reported losses. The FTC itself notes that most scams are never reported, so those numbers likely capture only a fraction of the real harm.
Three findings in that report matter most to owners:
- Copying real listings is the standard method. The FTC says scammers often copy legitimate listings, swap in their own contact information, and repost the ad on a different site.
- Self-tour properties are a specific target. The FTC describes scammers copying listings from landlords who use self-tour services and then sending would-be renters a code, or telling them how to get one, to open a lockbox holding the keys.
- Warnings posted inside the home work. According to the FTC, reports show that scam warnings posted inside these homes have helped tip some people off. It’s one of the cheapest fixes available.
The FTC also found that in the 12 months ending June 2025, about half of people who reported a rental scam said it started with a fake ad on Facebook, and another 16% said it started on Craigslist. Listing only on Zillow doesn’t keep a copy off Facebook.
Why the Owner Pays Even When the Renter Is the Victim
It’s tempting to file listing fraud under “not my money, not my problem.” In practice, a hijacked listing costs the owner in four ways.
1. Your vacancy runs longer
Fake ads priced below market pull inquiries away from your real ad. A qualified applicant who sees your house for $2,500 on one site and $3,600 on another may assume the higher price is the scam and walk away from both. Every week of confusion is a week of lost rent.
2. Victims show up at your door
People who paid a deposit to “Kenneth” don’t disappear quietly. They call your real number and leave reviews under your company name. Your name ends up attached to a fraud you had nothing to do with.
3. Your fair-housing file gets messy
California’s screening rules now reward a clean, consistent, documented process. We covered that in our post on California’s first-qualified-applicant requirements. When scam victims arrive claiming they already applied and were approved, you need records that show exactly who applied through your real channel, when, and what happened to the application.
4. Someone may move in
This is the expensive one. A vacant unit with a working keypad and a victim holding a real-looking lease can become an occupied unit before the owner knows anything happened.
If a Scam Victim Moves In, You Still Can’t Change the Locks
This is where owners make the costliest mistake. The instinct is to change the code and put their things on the curb. California law doesn’t work that way.
Civil Code Section 789.3 bars a landlord who is trying to end someone’s residential occupancy from shutting off utilities, changing the locks, removing outside doors or windows, or removing the occupant’s belongings without following the legal process. Penalties include actual damages plus up to $100 per day of violation, with a minimum of $250 for each separate cause of action, and the prevailing party recovers attorney’s fees. The statute applies to a tenancy “however created.” Whether a scam victim counts as a tenant is a fact question for the court. It isn’t something an owner should test with a locksmith.
The Code of Civil Procedure also treats possession of real property as something the courts sort out. Sections 1159 and 1160 define forcible entry and forcible detainer, and Section 1160 covers someone who enters property while the occupant is absent and then refuses to give it up for five days after a demand. Depending on the facts, your attorney may proceed under the unlawful detainer or forcible detainer rules. Either way, the path runs through a notice, a court filing, a judgment, and a sheriff’s lockout, not a new door code.
What you can do right away:
- Call the police and document everything. Report the fraud, get a report number, and keep the fake listing, screenshots, and any messages the occupants share with you.
- Talk to the occupants calmly and in writing. Some will leave voluntarily once they see proof of ownership.
- Call your landlord-tenant attorney the same day.
- Handle any belongings left behind carefully. If occupants leave property behind, California’s notice rules for abandoned property still apply. See our guide to what to do with property left in a unit.
Eight Controls That Make Your Listing Hard to Hijack
None of these is expensive. All of them cost less than one month of East Bay vacancy.
- Put a payment warning in every ad. One plain line works: “We never accept deposits or rent by Zelle, cash, gift card, or wire. Apply only at [your website].” Say it where renters will see it before a scammer reaches them.
- Post a scam notice inside the unit. Tape a sign inside the front door with your real company name, phone number, and website, plus the same payment warning. The FTC reports that these in-home warnings have tipped off would-be victims.
- Search your own address every week the unit is vacant. Check Craigslist, Facebook Marketplace, and the big listing sites. The California Department of Real Estate has specifically encouraged licensees to regularly search their listed addresses on online classified sites.
- Publish the real rent on your own website. A renter who checks your official site and sees $3,600 can spot a $2,500 copy for what it is. Owners who list only on third-party sites give renters nothing to compare against.
- Lock down self-tours. Require identity verification before any code is released, issue unique, time-limited codes, and turn off self-tours entirely if you find a copy of your listing. Rently itself told ABC7 that being able to tour a home doesn’t mean the person advertising it is authorized to rent it or collect payments. Self-tours work. Unattended self-tours are what get exploited.
- Take every application and payment through one portal. One channel for applications, screening fees, deposits, and rent gives renters an easy way to verify you, and gives you a clean record if a dispute ever reaches court.
- Display your DRE license number. In its 2022 consumer alert, the DRE told renters that a landlord or manager who doesn’t live at the property must be licensed, and to check the license on the DRE website. A license number on your ad and your sign makes your listing the easiest one to verify. The DRE issued another alert in April 2026 about scammers impersonating real licensees, so expect renters to check.
- Shorten the vacancy. The most effective defense is a unit that’s empty for the fewest possible days. Turnover work scheduled before move-out and pricing decided in advance shrink the window a scammer can use.
What to Do in the First 48 Hours After You Find a Fake Listing
- Screenshot it. Capture the ad, the URL, the price, the contact info, and the posting date before it disappears.
- Report it to the platform. Every major listing site and Facebook Marketplace has a reporting tool. Use it for every copy you find.
- Pause or tighten self-tours until the copies are gone.
- Update your real listing. Add a line saying a fraudulent copy of the ad is circulating and listing the only official ways to apply.
- Report it to the authorities. RentWise urged anyone targeted to report to the FTC at ReportFraud.ftc.gov, the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center at ic3.gov, and local police. Owners should do the same.
The Bottom Line for East Bay Owners
Rental scammers don’t break into anything. They borrow what owners leave unattended: listing photos, a vacant unit, a self-tour code, and a renter’s trust in a price that looks like a good deal. Prevention is cheap. Missing it shows up all at once: a longer vacancy, angry victims, a damaged name, and in the worst case a court process to recover your own unit.
SLPM Property Management handles leasing for owners across Oakland, San Leandro, and the SF East Bay. We use one application channel, publish our real listings and rents, keep an eye on vacancies, and keep the file clean from first inquiry to move-in. If your next vacancy is coming up and you’d rather not find out who else is advertising it, talk to our team about how we lease and protect your property.
This article is general information, not legal advice. Talk to a qualified California attorney about your specific situation.
